when the snakes slither by
by lydiamartins
Summary: Help me stagger home, we shine brighter when we try.-—KristenEli


**title: **when the snakes slither by  
**characters: **Kristen Gregory, Eli Scott, Layne Abeley  
**summary:** Help me stagger home, we shine brighter when we try.  
**a/n: **this is really AU; boarding school at briarwood academy: takes place when kristen moves from octavian country day after 8th grade: this is a really interesting pairing - i don't think i've ever seen anything about it before, but in the books, layne and eli dated for three weeks, and i know layne and kristen are good friends, so i thought i would try to combine that; this is pretty bad and rushed i'm sorry i hope you like it, (:  
**disclaimer: **i don't own anything besides the story idea; the characters and everything else belong to Lisi Harrison.  
**dedication: **this is for charlotte (_allisonarrgents_) for aprili gge14  
**prompt: **_kristen/eli_

also, sorry for spag errors.

* * *

She breathes in the air at Briarwood Academy—_it is something of magic, _Kristen decides upon.

Of course, her mind is based on the principles of logic (or so, she would like to believe) and magic is something for little children; it is used to explain situations that nobody had control of. The death of a parent—it's a magic trick, of course: one minute, they are in a box, the next moment, they are gone. It's not quite feasible to the mind, to the eyes, and with age grows the bitter knowledge that one barely has any control over anything, let alone their own life.

Kristen brushes away the milky blonde strands of hair that blow in her face, watching the current be borne back ceaselessly in the adjacent ocean, staring up at the looming face of Briarwood Academy—it is something of magic, the school.

For it is not possible for a middle-class girl of fifteen years to be accepted into a school that is ruled by bank accounts and bloodlines; she hopes that it will solely be around the topics of educations and sports. Perhaps, there will not be much drama as there was in Octavian Country Day, a prior school, which was ruled over by cliques and nonsensical people who said things that didn't make any good sense, but everybody respected (or feared or pretended to fear and respect) them nonetheless.

It was a very odd process, and Kristen thinks, _It looks like something out of a brochure. _There are a carefully selected array of students splayed across the front lawn, none of them with anything more than a meager smile imprinted upon their faces, as though they are practicing poses.

Perhaps they are.

* * *

Maybe she'll sit next to me—this whole shunning could be something of a new kid hazing ritual, Kristen thinks, but something tells her that it's a lot worse.

Kristen sits in the corner of the canteen of Briarwood Academy—it's a place that just screams wealthy, she thinks to herself; it's nothing of middle class or middle-upper class, but there are some Picasso paintings in the corners of the room which seem as though they could be the real thing, there's not a single girl

She fingers the edge of patterned crackers, smeared over humus dotted with black pepper; Kristen lets the taste savor over her buds and lets the fork bite into her bleeding gums. There are people streaming in from the mahogany doors—a group of four or so of them stride down the center of the tiled flooring, nacreous air surrounding themselves; it seems as though they are perfection wrapped up inside of an enigma.

"You've got a lot of guts coming up to somebody like me," the vintage dressed girl announces, snooty accent, then laughs, "Good thing I like courage. Sit down, I'm Layne Abeley. Call me Layne, not L-dawg or Lilluputian or L. Got it?"

Kristen nods—she's not in any place to make choices for friends, and Layne seems the slightest bit insane—and sits down.

_Note to self, don't change for anyone. _

* * *

Eli Scott—he is not something of magic, although. "I've heard of him," she mutters in a matter-of-fact tone. "Hangs around with Derrick Harrington and that soccer lot, no idea why, though."

"He's not popular, not by any means: just lucky, I think. Like Claire."

"Claire Lyons?" Kristen rolls her eyes, looking at the effervescent blonde who envelops her friends in a group hug with beaming white teeth and an annoying smile that always seems to be splayed across her face in the three weeks Kristen's been here. "It doesn't seem as though she's exactly the Pretty Committee's charity case or anything like that."

Layne stares up at the ceiling, hands clasped together, the epitome of practiced poise.

Perhaps Layne is one of them too—Kristen must admit to herself that the girl is eccentric and eclectic and has all these bizarre food and clothing habits, but there's something quirky about the way she dresses and talks: she's got this fake British accent, that only an individual who's spent countless hours watching BBC shows can develop, and gold rings that overwhelm the appearance of her otherwise mediocre hands.

They're small, not too small to be considered proper in society; "Are you even listening to me?" Layne questions, rolling her eyes. "Never mind that. Eli," she says in a much sweeter tone, "I didn't know that you were back at school." She leans over the table, as though Eli has suddenly disappeared and can't hear a word she's saying, "He had swollen glands and tonsils; disgusting, I know."

Kristen remembers the books on medicine she'd memorized. "Mono?"

Eli spits out his Glaceau water and his eyes widen. "Shut up, new girl! You don't want everybody in the cafeteria to know that I was out of school for something like the kissing disease."

"It's mononucleosis, and it's not always the kissing disease; you can receive the disease from sharing glasses, eating utensils, and toothbrushes, any item that has your saliva upon it. But, most commonly, it's associated with contact between mouths, and children rarely ever get it, but I know a few adults who claim to have mono but it has to be something else: by that age, they'll have built up an immunity to it, you see?" He stares at her unabashedly. "What?"

"You're something, new girl." And she's not quite sure if that's something to be proud of or not, because Eli's looking at her as though she's a completely new specimen and Layne is burning holes into her head.

* * *

"How do you do it?" Massie asks her in English class, turning around in her seat, while the teacher is giving a lecture to some idiot who decided that forging his mother's signature would work.

Kristen raises an eyebrow, and tilts her head back, just to make sure that Massie's not talking to somebody else: it's not as though she would consider the two of them to be friends, or even acquaintances for that matter; just classmates, really. "Do what?" She's pretty clueless about the matter.

Massie rolls her eyes, "You know what: talking to boys. You talk to them as though they're your friends, as though they're the same as you, as though they're the same people as your female friends. You get what I mean?" She says this all with a straight face and Kristen has to take a deep breath before responding because it might be one of the easiest questions she's ever had to answer.

"They're guys, yeah, but they're my friends. What's the difference between your girl friends and your guy friends?"

"_...um, everything? _Are you some sort of alien?" Massie questions, snooty accent. She takes the silence for a response of 'yes' and turns around in her seat. "Boys are the same as girls; that's a joke."

* * *

They're walking down the hallways of the Academy when Kristen first starts to get suspicious.

"I figure the universe is like a machine—I don't know who made it, but it moves the way it's meant to, most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and go haywire once in a while, but most of the time, things happen for a reason."

Kristen raises an eyebrow, unconvinced, "I can't believe that you quote from the Lost Hero series."

Eli's eyes widen, "Well, I've never seen you with a book that wasn't related to education or soccer in my life."

"Who said Percy Jackson wasn't related to education? The only way that I made it through the mythology unit of Year I was through reading that book—I wasn't actually planning on reading _The Odyssey. _That book's a bit of a mess, in my opinion." She pauses, "And there are a lot of things you don't know about me."

"Maybe I'd like to know more about you." He takes a pause, "So, there's the In Crowd but it's more than that—there's our generation and then, there's _the Legacy__._"

Eli had taken the responsibility upon himself to educate her about every aspect of Briarwood Academy's social life; Kristen wasn't sure why the boy who supposedly liked Layne was taking his own time to talk to her, but didn't mind the company. _Beggars can't be losers, _she thinks to herself—Eli Scott is nothing of a legend, she learns, of the Briarwood elite.

He is something completely average—constantly saying things like _You're only going to live once _and _I'm not scared_—and it's a breath of fresh air in a crowd of familiar faces, an entirely new scent. "I can't believe those girls are doing hunger, strikes, _again_."

Kristen barks out a laugh, "So that's what you think they're doing? No offense to the entire male gender, but actually, take offense, but all you guys think that girls go on hunger strikes, but how long are they going to go on hunger strikes? It's anorexia. Don't joke about it: anorexia is a disease, not a fashion statement."

"I wasn't going to."

* * *

"I think he loves you," Layne says in a matter-of-fact tone, dragging Kristen's arms down and pulling her next to her on the bus, whispering in her ear frantically. "He loves you, I'm sure of it."

Kristen raises an eyebrow, "I have no idea who you're talking about." Except, she sort of has a premonition that it's about Eli Scott, the boy who somehow makes her heart skip a beat (but most of the times, makes her really annoyed because he can't grasp the simple concepts in life and pretends to know everything and anything, but he doesn't, nobody can, not even her and he's just a really annoying person in general, but she's not exactly going to go up to him and tell him off for it because that would be rude, and high society girls, or at least high society wannabe girls, can't afford to be rude) for the oddest of reasons. "And guess what? I made it onto the soccer team!"

Layne barks out a laugh, "You made it onto the soccer team—good for you, Gregory. That's something that everybody saw coming."

"You don't understand; I'm the only girl on the Briarwood Tomahawks. THE ONLY GIRL WHO'S EVER BEEN ON THE BRIARWOOD TOMAHAWKS." The words are almost screamed, and Layne rolls her eyes at her over-excited friends. A group of bored, languid looking girls roll their eyes in a tired expression, as though they're counting down the days until their SENIORS faded sweatshirts are nothing but a reminder of misfortunate years. "It's a big deal, okay?"

Because she had spent hours, and hours, and hours, and hours practicing—all those times Marsha walk her up before the sun had been the iron curtain stretching across the landscape of disaster, acceptance into the Soccer Sisters (and eventually having to turn them down because the rates cost too much money, and there wasn't enough time)—and it was something of a dream.

_Don't get ahead of yourself, _Kristen reminds herself, _you don't want to have pride. Pride comes before a fall._

She wonders why she can't let herself be happy—any other individual in the school who cared as much as she cared about soccer would have carried an elated expression splayed across clueless face for the remainder of their days (or until something even better occurred to them, or perhaps, they grew used to the situation and took it for granted) and tells herself not to dwell on such matters. "Are you even listening to me?" Layne questions.

"Yeah, totally," Kristen murmurs back, tone brimming with distraction and something akin to boredom. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

Layne rolls her eyes, "I was talking about Eli: it seems as though the two of you are _such good friends _these days, so I was wondering if you could maybe possibly ask him if he likes me?"**  
**

"Sure, why not; and Layne, don't worry. We just met, what, four months ago? People don't fall in love that quickly."

* * *

She feels rather numb these days—perhaps, Kristen thinks, this is the way life is meant to be. What if we feel pain in some of our bodies all the time since we were born, but we just accepted it, and now, we feel nothing: and that's why babies cry so much, too.

(We always talk about how horrible society is.

Our parents tell us, that boy is wicked, don't fall in love with him; that girl is wicked, don't be friends with her. They always tell us that everybody out there is mostly bad and out to exploit us.

It's partly true, I know that much. But it's a lot harder to discover the truth: that society isn't horrible.

It's easy to sit back and complain about everything, but it's that much harder to think about how wonderful the world is actually is. We are capable of genocide and murder and arson and betrayal but the human race is so much more, and I would like for everybody to know that.)

* * *

It is something of a fairytale when she gets the scholarship—

One moment, she's just another normal individual at Briarwood Academy, and the next, she's off to see the world—the Soccer Sisters: it's even better than the Soccer Sisters, if the concept is possible to one's mind. "Go save the world, Kristen Gregory," Eli smiles, toothy grin.

He watches her fade away, waving from the front seat of the bus—but she's not the girl from the beginning of the year, head buried in books; she's openly conversing with the rest of the boys, and they accept her too—and wonders if he'll ever see her again.

* * *

**from: **your queen (aka moi, massilyn block)

**to: **the pretty committee [alicia rivera, claire lyons, dylan marvil], the legacy [skye hamilton, chris abeley, nina callas, dune baxter, danny robbins, ryan marvil, landon crane, james webster], the tomahawks [derrick harrington, cameron fisher-price, kemp hurley, chris plovert, dempsey solomon, kristen gregory] and the charity basket [eli scott, layne abeley, meena patel, heather buttkiss]

**message: **annual block christmas celebration—starts at 6 on the dot and don't be there a second earlier (i'm talking to you, kemp, you creep); be there bitches xoxo

* * *

She stands with an obscure sheet of coloratura, a clithridiate binder in the other hand, two months later, and laughs.

* * *

It's been something of three and a half months since the return to Briarwood Academy—or, at least, something of contact among its populace who had forgotten her for the most part.

Mellisonant voices were nothing of Monday mornings in the AP Lit classroom—Mrs. Burnett wore something of burnt sienna shade and extravagantly worn hoop earrings, and perhaps sneaker wedges, but Kristen didn't keep up with the fashion trends to remember what those type of shoes were to be called. "Good morning, class!" The woman seemed to be trying to sound excited, as though Monday mornings were filled with joy and happiness, but it came off as screeching, like a fire alarm; Kristen snapped to attention, trying to stay awake in first period.

"Today, we'll be working on a creative writing project. I know that it's only been a few weeks into school—" _Try days, _Kristen thinks, "—but I believe that all of you are ready to give some of your knowledge into your writing. Throughout the course of the year, we'll be working on publishing your own books, with the help of our generous donators. Isn't that exciting?"

The class is generally nodding their heads in an aimless direction, eyes wandering across the room, from the whiteboard to the clock, from their notebooks back up to the clock, waiting for the hour to be over. Kristen finds herself fitting the trend and wonders if this is what life is meant to be: waiting for one hour after another hour to be over, and it's the oldest story in the universe.

One day, you're fifteen, and the next moment, you're an adult graduated from college, wishing for time to go backwards; to be a few years younger, even a few months. But there is no such thing as magic, and living in the moment is not something simple, either, despite what it may seem from all those reality television shows with those really rich girls and their really grand mansions.

Briarwood Academy was supposed to be something out of a reality television show—the social circles and their various levels, canteen seating arrangements, known rules of conduct, a few pregnant girls here and there, gossip points, and such—but it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

It was a high school, much like any other, except for its location in one of the richest suburbs of the nation. Layne bursts into the classroom with a hesitant mien, a myriad of jasmine smelling parfum surrounding her appearance: the familiar pink strand of hair Kristen had once associated with her friend faded between layers of envy and courage.

Looking over at Layne, who sits next to the exuberant blonde Claire; Eli is nowhere to be seen—_good for him, leaving this place; he probably deserves better; _Kristen thinks it's a bit disheartening to find out how much people can change in three months, that change is inevitable.

_Note to self, _Kristen thinks, _don't change for anyone—just lie. _


End file.
